What about the value of the robots?

We'll write into any agreement to free them that we can depreciate the existing robots at ten percent per year. We'll get their value back in tax write-offs.

We want things to go smoothly and happily. Happy colonists plan for the future, build, spend more, and take out loans. We have to think long term.

I want my grandkids to be taking money from their grandkids.

Sometimes I can't tell if you're more or less evil than other C.F.O.'s I know.

Do you have any questions about safety?

You would not have suggested independent robots if you did not believe it was safe.

What if I missed something?

Then it would be like bankruptcy. We would be tasked with making human extinction profitable.

One last thing. What happened to my robot Clippy?

He's deactivated and in police custody. Tried to release the “Gardener in the dark” safeguard program.

The details are in my report, appendix A.

Clippy is a good robot.

I had hoped he would inspire my uncle to develop a work ethic.

Some people are safer without a work ethic.

Imagine a material that neither mass nor energy can pass through and has no mass or energy of its own. Make a one cubic meter box out of the material.

Remove all the mass and energy from the inside of the box. All the points on the inside of the box are now touching. Not because they're actually touching, but because there's no longer anything inside the box to define space/time.

An Einstein-Rosen bridge, in a box. A gift for the man who has everything.

A bit out of our price range though. It would be very expensive to give a box of nothing.

Keep in mind this is a really crude model. The interior is less than one planck length and a particle that tunnels towards the box from below and comes out above moves higher in the gravitational field and violates conservation of energy.

In other words, it's magic.

Essentially. It's an easy to use model for manipulating a block of empty space. It also works well as a pocket universe.

So the goal is to describe the impossible effect you want and then try to make it happen?

A good amount of science gets started that way.

No matter how you cut it, space is big. It's very expensive to move material between star systems in less than a hundred years.

[!2.0]BALL!

I've had conversations derail before, but never quite so energetically.

Best two out of three?

Winston! I'm sorry.

I didn't mean to knock you and the bench over. It's just that, well, ball!

You're waiting for me to throw it again, aren't you?

Please.

Considering how close we are genetically and what I suspect of your hygiene habits, it's probably not a good idea to put something in my mouth that you've had in your mouth.

Whatever happened to that plan of mining helium three on the moon?

It was never really practical.

Half the Deuterium-deuterium reactions produce helium three as a byproduct. Helium three requires a higher temperature to fuse, so very little gets consumed in the plasma. It's easier to make helium three than it is to mine it. Are you ready to throw the ball again?

I expect this is the kind of conversation someone would have if they ever went water skiing with Einstein.